Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Will the ending of the Zero Interest Rate policy produce a credit crisis?

The lead story in today's FT says quotes the Glaxo's CEO as saying that easy money has led drug companies to make bad investments. "It's a little bit reminiscent of the early 2000s where every bit of new scientific news was good and would be permanent and would lead to great value creation." The article notes that a record $460 bn of pharma deals have occurred since the beginning of 2014.

I suppose that a lot of this spending has been debt financed. If the assets aren't good, then debt service will become increasingly onerous as interest rates rise. This is another reason for the Fed to keep interest rates below the rate of inflation indefinitely.

Meanwhile, the head of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), Steven Maijoor, said yesterday that "The very historically unusual monetary policy is raising risks for the non-banking sector." He said investors and companies were investing to an excessive degree in illiquid assets in a search for returns due to the overvaluation of liquid stocks and bonds.

Every day that ZIRP persist makes more severe the subsequent credit crisis, n'est-ce pas

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